Dodds: No ticket scandal at UT

Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds said Thursday the system of checks and balances in his department makes him confident a ticket scalping scandal like the one at Kansas could not happen at UT.

Earlier this week, Yahoo! Sports reported that a member of the KU athletic department and the father of a Jayhawks player allegedly made more than $800,000 in a ticket scam run by consultants David and Dana Pump. Wednesday, KU officials said six former staffers combined to sell more than $1 million in football and basketball tickets in five years.

The Yahoo! report quoted a source saying similar operations are in place at other universities around the country. But in a statement released Thursday, Dodds said he is “extremely confident” UT isn’t involved in such practices.

“For decades, Texas has had internal controls in place in our athletics ticket operation and in our Longhorn Foundation fundraising,” Dodds’ statement said. “And in my years as men’s athletics director here, we have invited auditors to regularly review our ticket sales and distribution systems and policies. We also have two full-time risk managers on staff who continuously review how we do business. The University also routinely audits athletics business. I am extremely confident in our structure and protocol. If something were to go wrong, the system of checks and balances is such that we would catch it quickly. I feel comfortable that everything we do is fully accounted for.”